


Everyone Loves A Story

by Ceewelsh



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Christmas, F/M, Humor, M/M, festive
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-30
Updated: 2013-06-07
Packaged: 2017-11-22 23:56:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/615800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ceewelsh/pseuds/Ceewelsh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur stresses, Morgana is a vixen, Will and Gwaine are wingmen, and Merlin needs a drink.</p>
<p>Naturally once Mithian is introduced to the group, they set about telling some of their best and most embarrassing stories!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sometimes, Alcohol IS the Answer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flossbucket](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flossbucket/gifts).



> Written for Caitlin for the festive fic exchange.  
> Thanks to the lovely Tori (wh0riarty on Tumblr) for her beta!  
> First published fanfic longer than a few hundred words, so yeah.

“Arthur.” Merlin tried, as the man in question darted past him.  
“…and Morgana is bound to have tried to mess everything up—I know you don’t believe me, but trust me, Merls, she is pure evil and…”  
Merlin just sighed and went back to drying up, humming Stop The Cavalry. He loved Arthur, he truly did, but the man had no concept of how much he rambled when nervous. Arthur wasn’t leaving for his father’s house for another day and a half, but he had been panicking for hours, and packed for over a week.  
“…a tie. Should I have bought a tie? But he needs a new one. I thought it was a good idea. Oh crap, it’s crap isn’t it, I should have…”  
Silently, Merlin wondered whether or not he should tell Arthur that he could only hear him as he went past. He decided to just let Arthur carry on until he ran out of steam.  
…which could take some time.  
Throwing the tea towel onto the chair, Merlin picked up his phone.  
“Morgana? Alcohol. Spread the word.”

*****

Will sat with his back to the wall, surveying the pub over his pint. There were so many Santas of so many sizes, it made him dizzy.  
Gwaine, the git, was late. Again. Not that Will doubted his ability to pull on his own, not at all, it was just that Gwaine brought a certain foreign charm that Will’s blatantly local accent could not. And then there was the fact that whoever lost at darts bought the next round, and Gwaine was shit at darts. It was because of the accent and the free booze that Will wanted Gwaine there. He didn’t actually need a wingman. Gwaine just… helped. A little. Sometimes. When he wasn’t overly drunk.  
Which was why Will was still annoyed and not at all relieved to see his wingman turn up, half dancing to I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday, which was quite the feat considering he had a guy on one arm, a girl on the other, and four beers clutched in his hands. Will wasn’t sure whether to be impressed or hide under the table before people knew he was with Gwaine.  
“Will! So good to see you!” Damn, too late to hide under the table then. “This is the lovely Vivian, she’s heard a lot about you and would love to hear more about your work with the orphanage while I talk to Cedric here!” Gwaine jabbered away, flashing a grin at Will.  
So, it was an orphanage evening then. That meant the lovely Viv was gullible, almost too gullible. Although, to be fair, he did technically work in an orphanage. The fact that it was a rescue centre for cats and dogs didn’t stop the fact that they were orphans… Just orphans of the four legged kind.  
“So you go there every week?” She asked him, her smile bright and friendly. He subtly looked her over, not bad. He’d shagged worse—hell, he’d dated worse. Will shuddered and forced all thoughts of Catrina out of his mind.  
Gwaine seemed to be getting on alright with Cedric, but Will knew him well enough to know that that meant either Cedric was just as flirty as him, or just plain easy. Gwaine seldom went for easy, so Will knew he’d better get on with chatting to Vivian before Gwaine go bored of her friend.  
“Yeah, every Tuesday afternoon. Feels good to be giving back, you know? You always feel that gratitude. But the pest part,” Will wracked his brain for what Lance had been saying the other day “is just knowing you’re making a difference to the world. No matter how small your input is, it makes an impact nonetheless and someone appreciates it.” Vivian visibly melted at that and over her shoulder, Will saw Gwane hide a smirk behind his drink. If he was eavesdropping already, he was bored already, and Will internally cursed Gwaine for his tiny, tiny attention span. Still, he wasn’t insisting they left yet.  
“That is so sweet! Gwaine said you were sweet, but I had no idea! I mean, do girls really fall for that?” Her tone changed drastically on the latter part of the sentence.  
“Wh-what?” Will spluttered.  
“You’re a pig. I’m only here for Ced, and he just isn’t getting anywhere, so we’re going.” and they did, but not before Will got a face full of beer.

*****

“Arthur.” Merlin tried again, attempting to keep the frustration out of his voice. Finally, giving up, Merlin grabbed him by the wrist. Arthur stopped short and blinked.  
“Sorry? Were you saying something?” Arthur sounded so innocent that Merlin just had to roll his eyes.  
“Only for the past half an hour. I need you to stop panicking now.” Arthur’s entire demeanour changed immediately in protest, tugging his wrist away.  
“I have not been panicking. Pendragon’s do not panic.” Arthur stood up tall and proud. Merlin burst into laughter.  
“You look like a peacock! You actually look like a bloody peacock! Oh you should see yourself, Arthur! The suit doesn’t help at all! You’ve even got a tuft in your hair!” Merlin was laughing so hard, it was difficult to get words out, so he stopped trying, collapsing onto the floor.  
“Merlin.” Arthur growled, with no real heat. “Merlin, get up you daft sod.”  
“Peacock…” Merlin giggled, rolling onto his side and curling up in an attempt to stop the laughter.  
“Merlin this really isn’t funny. Merlin. Merlin, if you piss yourself, I am not cleaning it up!”  
Before Merlin could, his phone went off. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he briefly thought that maybe he should change the ringtone Arthur set. Instead, he just cut off the Jaws theme tune and answered.  
“Morgana! All set?”  
“Yes, yes, red squadron are go and all that shit. Really though, Merlin, darling, you should have just stopped him in the first few minutes. Visiting Uther has always had this affect on him, you should know that by now. It’s not pretty.” Merlin glanced over at Arthur who looked ready to go back to the tie.  
“Yeah, I’m starting to get that… So, did you get everyone?” Merlin asked, and could almost hear the smirk in her answer.  
“All except Will and Gwaine, so we’ll go ruin their evening!”  
“Great plan! Same ol—Arthur Pendragon if you move one step, I am leaving you right now! Go near that suitcase and I will smash your Torchwood boxset!”  
  
“…Morgana, is it a bad sign that the boxset threat worked better?” Merlin sighed, half-glaring at Arthur, who was smirking back at him.  
“Well, you know, ‘wood before…well… wood! See you at the pub, dear!” Morgana hung up while Merlin was still spluttering, five years still not preparing him for half of what came out of that vixen’s mouth sometimes. Still, to be fair, her first words to him when he moved in were ‘So, are you really here because you’re practically homeless and Lance happened to know a friend, or do you just want to get in my brother’s pants?’. Right now, he was wishing he’d just run.  
Arthur, on the other hand, wasn’t moving an inch, watching his boxset like a hawk. Merlin just slipped his phone into his pocket and started banging his head on the wall.  
“Merlin?” Arthur asked, evidently slipping out of his trance long enough to take the few step across to him. “What’s wrong?”  
“Oh nothing. Just the fact that you’re stressing out and wasting the little time we have left together before Christmas, Morgana is a vixen, Will and Gwaine will hate us for ruining their evening, Gwen and Lance are going to be sickening since it’s their first Christmas together as a married couple, Elyan and the others are going to get absolutely pissed and it’s going to be hilarious but I’m not even going to notice because I’m going to be trying to make sure you don’t see a tie and flip out again!” Merlin complained, all in one breath, turning around. He let his head fall onto the wall with a soft thud, closing his eyes as he realised quite how blatantly pathetic he was being.  
“Merlin.” Merlin opened his eyes, to meet Arthur’s. “I’m sorry. I promise not to freak out tonight. Besides, get me some sherry and I’ll be full of Christmas cheer—remember last year?” Arthur grinned at him, taking his hands, and Merlin’s lips tugged into a helpless smile in return.  
“Surprised we’re still allowed in the bar, to be honest.” Although, to be fair, The Reindeer Incident wasn’t entirely Arthur’s fault. Will had decided to test Arthur’s worth for Merlin, despite having known Arthur for years at that point (‘but not as your suitor!’ Will had argued). Arthur, unwilling to ignore a thrown gauntlet, had accepted. If Lance hadn’t intervened, the two of them probably would have been caught underneath the reindeer as it fell.  
“It’s because I am amazing. Come on, let’s go get pissed, and I’ll not mention a single tie.”

*****

Will sat there trying to clear the mess off his face with the napkins—and Christ, were those really fucking snowmen? While his supportive friend sat there chortling away.  
“Mate, you should have seen your face! She feckin well got you good there! Ah, how long’s it been since either of us got a drink to the face?” Gwaine asked with a grin, as if remembering a great occasion, rather than one which had-if Will remembered rightly-resulted in spending half an hour in the Gents rinsing out his eye.  
“Until now, I hadn’t for six months. Really though, I thought this shit only happened in films? Who actually does this in real life?”  
“It empowers the women-folk, who are we to take that away from them?” Gwaine smirked.  
“You can talk big all you want, I know that if Morgana, or Ellie, or even Gwen were here, you wouldn’t dare say anything at all!” Will was rewarded with Gwaine looking a little sheepish.  
“Yeah well. Just be glad you’re not into blokes, Willaby—”  
“I’m not called Willaby.”  
“—Willaby. They just punch you!”  
“Ah yes, you’ve had many a night of black eyes and beer-filled faces, my friend. Barely a week for you, by the way, the last time for you was last week at that wedding, you know, when you tried to pull the daughter, mother and grandmother all in the same night. Which was gross even for you by the way.” Will said, grimacing at him. Gwaine, just laughed, nodding slightly.  
“Hey, I got the number of the mother and the daughter. Thought I might have been pushing it going for three generations in one night…” Gwaine said, still laughing slightly.  
“Still can’t believe you ended up going home with the girl’s best friend.” Will shook his head a little ruefully, while Gwaine just snorted.  
“It’s the Irish charm, the one skill I could never teach you.”  
“Yes, because all the skills you have taught me are so very useful. Remind me to thank you next time I’m talking to a girl about the many ways to kill a man with a pocket knife.” Will rolled his eyes.  
“Always a great thing to overhear…” Merlin said, making them jump.  
“Gwaine.” Will said by way of explanation, sliding further into the booth, to let Merlin and Arthur in.  
“Morgana’s getting drinks,” Arthur explained, “Leon’s making sure he locked the car, Gwen and Lance are on their way, but they’re picking up Elyan. Ellie is bringing her friend Mithian, so I reckon she’s warning her to stay away from you two!”  
“I must meet her!” Gwaine cackled, as Will made indignant noises, which soon turned into a snort at Gwaine’s comment.

“No, Gwaine. For fucks sake. Last time you said those words, was when we all met Helen, who, lovely as she was, did try to kill Arthur when he refused her proposition.” Merlin reminded him. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so you know when you find something you meant to post 6 months ago, but you're crap so didn't and it's no longer Christmas, but it's 1am so posting seems like a good idea?

Looking back, it had been pretty funny. Well, it had been funny since Arthur had survived. To be fair, it was less of a near-death experience, and more of an overly terrifying experience. _  
_

Gwaine met her at Gwen and Lance’s Christmas party. Morgana had told them all she was a vicious bitch who was to be avoided at all costs. Gwaine decided that meant ‘quick, Gwaine, go seduce!”.

Half an hour later, Gwaine had given up and gone after someone easier. Not without leaving Helen with her claws firmly attached to Arthur though, he of course had to leave his friend with the bitch as punishment. Arthur had promised Gwaine (and Will) that he would be taking Merlin as a date to the party, but had chickened out yet again. Naturally so had Merlin, but they would punish him later. For now, it was entertaining enough to watch them from across the room. Arthur was growing more and more uncomfortable, but years of living with Uther conditioned him to still try to be as charming as possible to Helen. Merlin, for his part, was studiously ignoring Arthur, and most definitely not working out how to make Helen disappear without anyone noticing.

Which was how he absolutely did not notice when the wench took Arthur off somewhere by ‘pretending’ to look all faint. Merlin rolled his eyes. People who were actually faint, did not pause constantly on the way out to smile and reassure people she was just feeling faint. People who were actually going to faint, _fucking fainted_. Not that Merlin was watching them. He just felt uncomfortable on Arthur’s behalf.

Arthur himself, was just wanting to leave. Helen looked like she was going to throw up, and Arthur really, really hadn’t signed up for that. What the hell he had done to deserve being trapped by goodwill in Lancelot’s bathroom, he had no idea. He wondered what Merlin was doing--no. No he did not wonder at all what Merlin was doing, nor was he ruffled that Merlin hadn’t been watching while he had been charming and handsome with Helen.  
And his mind most definitely was not on Merlin when Helen viciously attacked his mouth with her own.

“What the-?” Arthur tried to ask, but he felt that the sentiment was somewhat lost as Helen took the opportunity to try and slide that snake of a tongue inside his mouth. Arthur staggered backwards, and eventually managed to prise her off him.

“Helen, you are very lovely, but I am very gay, and very, very scared right now.” Arthur babbled, fairly certain he was bright red and about to throw up. He felt no better when Helen smiled predatorily at him and moved towards him. Instead of saying something, she threw a bottle of shampoo at him. Arthur batted it away, reeling from the fact that yes, that had just happened.

“You think you’re too good for me?!” Helen yelled, grabbing a pair of nail scissors and aiming them straight at Arthur’s eyes. They missed, much to Arthur’s relief, but as he turned back to her, she’d found a penknife, which was hurtling towards him. Arthur barely had time to close his eyes-and wonder who the hell keep a penknife in their bathroom-before he was being knocked to the ground.

Merlin, who had burst through the door moments before, leaped up from where he had landed after tackling Arthur to the ground and lunged at Helen.

After that, it was a bit of a blur. Later on, it became a joke. Later on, they would threaten to “do a Helen” from time to time. Later on, Merlin would tell Arthur that he owed Merlin a lot.

But that night, after finally being released from Gwen (who would not stop fussing), Morgana (who was ready to kill Helen), Lance (who was trying to calm everyone down), Gwaine (who was flicking between deadly concern and howling with laughter), and Will (who had decided that “Merlin’s bravery” was a cause to drink even more), and after a drunken Helen had been warned never to go near them again, Merlin took Arthur back to the flat they shared, where they decided the only solution was more alcohol.

 

 

*****

By the time everyone arrived, they had had a few drinks and started a debate over whose death was the most heart-breaking in Torchwood.

“I am sorry,” Will was slurring, “but there is no way in hell that Tosh’s ‘because you’re breaking my heart’ wasn’t the most soul-shattering line in all of existence.”

“I never said that!” Arthur countered, “I said, that Jack just saying ‘Don’t.’ to Ianto was so painful. I mean, we had everyone else dying at the same time, and all Jack says when Ianto tells him he loves him is don’t, which could mean ‘don’t love me’ or ‘don’t say it’ or ‘don’t leave me’. It leaves so much unsaid.”

“No, Arthur, the contrast of Owen ‘raging his way to oblivion’ and Tosh just whispering was far worse. Did you see Owen’s face?” Morgana asked, knowing full well that Arthur was seeing it right at that moment in his mind’s eye.

“I never really like Ianto anyway,” the girl Will had brought over to them chimed in.

Five minutes later, they resumed their conversation, the girl having been exiled.

“Ianto Jones was never just a coffee boy.” Merlin said quietly, raising a glass, “To Ianto, Tosh and Owen.”  
They all drank, before bursting out laughing at the sombre atmosphere.

“Ever think we need lives?” Elena giggled, before laughing so hard her wine came out of her nose. A look of exasperation passed around the table while those closest to Elena helped her clean up.

“Moving on from ‘wood--no Gwaine, just... No.--care to tell us why you decided to crash our evening out?” Will asked. Merlin and Morgana exchanged a quick look and for once, Morgana seemed happy to save her brother some face.

“Well since everyone will be buggering off to respective families or whatever in the next few days, we thought tonight could be a sort of Merry Christmas get together! And what get together is complete without sherry and shots? Who’s going?” Everyone looked away as Morgana beamed around the table. Finally, Mithian got up to go.

“Ah knew we brought you here for a reason!” Gwaine grinned, earning himself a stern look from Gwen.

 

Gwen had grown up with Gwaine, and therefore was the only one actually able to control him. All she ever had to do was say the first words to an incriminating story (and it shocked them all that there were actually stories incriminating enough for _Gwaine_ not to tell them) and Gwaine would shut up. It also meant that she knew the signs of Gwaine better than anyone, and a grin from Gwaine, almost always meant he had picked his prey.

Still, their friendship was just as much reason as her blackmail for Gwaine behaving. They had been fierce friends for years, and he had been the one to introduce her to Lance, promising her that he was perfect for her (correct), that it would be easy to get him to fall for her (also correct, but not intentionally, no matter what Gwaine said), and that they’d be together within a month (five and a half months wrong, but Gwen didn’t really mind because she got him eventually). Actually, thinking about it, for all Gwaine and Will’s talk of “oh woe is us, so many monogamous friends”, they were actually a bit of a team at matchmaking. Gwaine had introduced Gwen to Lance, they had both plotted to get Merlin and Arthur together, and Will was the reason Morgana and Leon were together, though there was a complete barricade against that particular snippet of information; even Gwen couldn’t get the story out of them.

Gwen was returned to the present by Mithian returning with a load of drinks, which were definitely not sherry and shots.

“I got told these are all your usuals? I got told a straight no to shots, and he looked liked he was going to cry when I mentioned sherry. Something about a reindeer?” Mithian’s expression of confusion was met with roaring laughter.

“NOT my fault!”  
“You’ve ruined my shots!”

“I hate you.”

“So what happened?” Mithian asked, taking the hint that everyone was ignoring Will, Morgana and Arthur.

 

 

*****

A year ago, to the day, Arthur and Merlin came into the pub to tell their friends they had finally got together. Predictably, this was met with a whole group of people congratulating them and telling them they took long enough. A little less predictably, it was also met with Will deciding that since he was the closest Merlin had to an older brother (Merlin’s repeated protests of the fact that Will was younger were ignored by all), the responsibility fell to him to challenge any of Merlin’s suitors (the fact that Will and Gwaine had been the main conspirators in getting the two together was also ignored for the evening). A series of challenges were set.

First came the vile concoction test. The VCT was the usual punishment for moderate offenses against the group. They would all put whatever the hell they could find into half a pint, and over the years it had become less laughable, and more a serious task. Also it had become so dangerous that they had had to bring rules into it. Namely, the use of what may or may not have been hospital waste. Elyan never confirmed or denied what he had added, but it had resulted in the first ever rule. Though the VCT had been a tradition since the early days of Uni, what Arthur had drunk that day remained the worst concoction they had ever made. Without even mentioning the cocktail of alcohol added, it was horrendous, as it included tabasco sauce, ketchup, a crushed snickers bar, what was apparently part of a drink Will had found in the gents, fat-juice from the kitchens (Morgana had a way with the kitchen staff at the pub), blended potato peelings as well as a whole host of ingredients that nobody actually wanted to know about. It took Arthur nearly three quarters of an hour to drink it, and he spent a further fifteen minutes gagging over a toilet, but he didn’t actually throw up, so it was deemed to be a pass.

The second task, was to arm wrestle Perceval, the cook at the pub. Obviously, no-one ever beat Percy unless he let them, so the task was to last over two minutes against him. Arthur did it, but he felt like the use of his arm was permanently lost. Lancelot offered to have a look at his arm, but Arthur would rather have a hurt arm than hurt pride if Lance deemed him unable to carry on.

Predictably, round three involved drinking. Lots of drinking. There didn’t exactly seem to have been a point to the drinking, but after a while, Will announced Arthur had passed, and they moved onto the fourth challenge.

Which was, inexplicably, karaoke. Frankly, none of them felt like a winner after being forced to listen to Arthur and Will drunkenly duet “Start of Something New”, horrifically followed by “Sisters Are Doin’ It For Themselves”. The sole redeeming factor was that thanks to Gwen, Morgana and Gwaine’s quick thinking, they had three different angles of blackmail for them. Even with the videos, Will and Arthur still denied ever singing in public, therefore the songs choices had never been explained.

The fifth, incomplete, final task started as... No-one really knew how it started. An extremely drunk Will had a vague plan which no-one else apart from an equally drunk Arthur seemed to understand. They started racing around the (thankfully nearly empty by that point) pub, before jumping onto a table and fighting to touch the nose of a rudolph who was hung above their heads. Lance, announcing that enough was enough and it wasn’t funny anymore (Merlin’s protests that he had said that _from the beginning_ were again ignored), went and grabbed them both down from the table. They managed a few final drunken swipes before allowing themselves to be taken away.

“Well at least nothing got damaged.” Merlin had grumbled. Which, of course, was when Rudolph crashed down onto the table.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it, the rest should hopefully be up in the next few days.


End file.
